1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing system, an E-mail transmission control apparatus, an information processing method, and a program capable of achieving the information processing method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, importance of internal control has increased according to legislation and the like. In this connection, it is desirable in E-mail transmission to go through a prescribed procedure from the aspect of internal control. However, there is a problem in the E-mail transmission that, even if the contents of an E-mail are approved beforehand, it is impossible to confirm the contents of the E-mail to be actually transmitted.
Here, each of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2002-063117 and 2007-065787 discloses an E-mail transmission/reception apparatus in which a transmitter designates an approver in regard to an E-mail to be actually transmitted. According to the techniques disclosed in these documents, it is possible to cope with the above problem if the approver designated by the transmitter confirms the content of the E-mail to be actually transmitted.
Further, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-065787, since the selectable approvers are limited according to the transmitter, it is possible to prevent that an obviously improper approver approves the content of the E-mail.
However, from the aspect of internal control, it is assumed that different approval methods are prescribed according to the contents of the E-mails to be transmitted. Under the circumstances, in the techniques disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 2002-063117 and 2007-065787, the prescribed approver has to be judged by the transmitter according to the content to be transmitted. For this reason, there is a problem that, if there are many approval methods, transmitter's judgments for selecting the approvers become complicated.
Further, in a case where an organization, an approval method or the like is changed, there is a possibility that the transmitter of an E-mail requests the approval to an improper destination because it is impossible to completely inform all the transmitters of such a change.
It should be noted that the present invention has been completed in consideration of such conventional problems as described above, and aims to obviate necessity for complicated judgment by an E-mail transmitter for selecting an approver, and further aims to prevent an approval request by the E-mail transmitter issued to an improper destination.